Unwanted/Spontaneous Abortions, Birth Defects & Preventable Infant Deaths listed in MedWatch

PREVENTABLE INFANT DEATHS CAUSED BY PAXIL: ACTUAL MEDWATCH REPORTS
The idea of The MOTHERS Act proponents accepting or publicizing any abortion rights group's endorsement seems ridiculous in light of numerous spontaneous abortions caused by the drugs.

April 24, 2008

The FDA MedWatch System catches between 1-10% of actual adverse events linked to prescription drugs in the US. Those cases actually reported and recorded give us an idea of what is really going on with these drugs, and there are certainly FAR MORE reports of harm in the MedWatch database than we were led to believe could occur from the initial clinical trial "reports," or the estimation of the margin of safety or risk-benefit ratios that many pro-drug advocates have expressed.

Antidepressant drugs double the risk of miscarriage or spontaneous abortion and stillbirth, and quintuple the risk of preterm birth. With SSRIs there is a six-fold increased risk of PPHN which is potentially fatal (for those exposed babies who actually survive the pregnancy and birth). With Paxil the risk of heart defects is much higher than with other SSRIs. Even though drug labels often provide evidence of significant harm and neonatal death, stillbirth, and spontaneous abortions in animal studies, many doctors claim that the results found in lab settings cannot be extrapolated or expected in humans. The excuse that all drugs have side effects and not all drugs work for everyone has been used to justify turning patients into guinea pigs while doctors cross their fingers and hope for the best. But there are few situations MORE inappropriate for experimentation than the one we are faced with defending against, and that is a vulnerable pregnant woman or new mother being put on drugs.

Unfortunately women are so frightened of becoming mothers these days thanks to the frequent cases of child-murder or maternal suicide (which are usually caused by antidepressants), that they will easily trust doctors who tell them they've seen this before and that they feel it is safest if the patient takes an antidepressant to avoid becoming too dangerous to her child. That would be fine if the drugs actually prevented suicide or homicide instead of causing them, or if they did not risk killing the unborn or newborn baby upon exposure.

CDC data suggests that around 28,000 babies under the age of 1 die each year in the US from various causes. Between 2004 and 2007 there were 65 reported spontaneous abortions listed in the MedWatch database as reactions caused by Paxil alone. The actual number of babies who died from spontaneous abortion because of Paxil in the US for those years is probably somewhere between 650 and 6,500.

MedWatch reports list at least 110 total infant deaths from Paxil alone* (not including reports of "abortion induced" or reports where it seems that the baby actually died but the word death was not included on the report - see below). This means that our country lost an estimated 1,100-11,000 babies due to Paxil exposure during pregnancy or the neonatal period for those few years. http://www.psychdrugdangers.com/MothersAct.html

These deaths were preventable. These lost babies deserved to live and their mothers deserved to carry them to term safely.

At least half of all pregnant women on SSRIs are never warned of any of the risks of these drugs for their unborn babies. Instead of trying to legalize a mandatory "screening," "treatment" and "prevention" of perinatal mood disorders effort like the notorious MOTHERS Act, what our country and our leaders should instead be doing is getting these deadly psychiatric drugs (let's start with all SSRIs and atypical antipsychotics) OFF the market. Women are not being offered informed consent now, and they certainly aren't being offered informed consent under the proposed MOTHERS Act.

All of the babies and mothers who have died because of psychiatric drugs would NOT want their deaths ignored, and in some cases twisted and used as false examples of the "dangers of depression."

It doesn't make much sense to me why anyone pushing for The MOTHERS Act would welcome the endorsement of an abortion rights group, considering all of the infant deaths caused by these drugs. ESPECIALLY not when you know that The MOTHERS Act proposes doing more research on ethnic and racial minorities.

Just so you know which abortion rights groups are sponsoring the bill, here is the reference:

"Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, and NARAL, Pro-Choice America" (from Congressman Rush's October 16 press release - the day after The House passed the bill).

The MOTHERS Act is also endorsed by a number of corrupt, financially conflicted, and ill-informed organizations and drug advocates who all-too-often carelessly recommend drugs without warning women that they pose so many serious risks. Some of the groups sponsoring the legislation have clear PhRMA ties while others simply benefit in other ways when women are funneled into the "mental health" system.

Antidepressants are far from the only types of dangerous medications given to pregnant women, and many doctors continue to ignore all known risks of SSRIs like Paxil as though any reports or studies on the risks are "unconfirmed" - putting countless lives at risk while making arrogant and dangerous treatment decisions.

The ACOG reports that one third of all pregnant women in the US take psychiatric drugs. The number of babies dying unnecessarily from spontaneous (unwanted) abortion is astronomically high.

Using the Edinburgh Depression Scale has been shown to triple the average number of women tagged with PPD diagnoses. Some doctors and drug advocates even promote PROPHYLACTIC treatment with drugs, i.e. drugs given to supposedly "PREVENT" depression from occurring! It is also reported that doctors believe FAR MORE FREQUENTLY that antidepressants are safe and effective than mothers do. Thus, it would seem that a mandatory bill for screening and treatment would be a welcomed change for any doctors who are tired of "noncompliance." When will our WOMEN wake up and STAND UP for themselves? The white coat does not indicate omniscience for whoever is wearing it!

With all this "prophylactic" drugging, I wonder, should we redefine PPD as Post-Partum Drugging instead of Post-Partum Depression? The number of pregnant women already taking drugs before they give birth is higher than the estimated percentage of women who get PPD in the first place! I suppose that means that PhRMA would like to drug women for any and every reason possible so that way more than one third of childbearing-aged women are on drugs. Never mind what happens to us or our children!

How could the market possibly grow any larger? Surely one third of pregnant women is more than PhRMA should ever hope for! It makes no sense that there would be a need for more greed and that anyone would be willing to put up with any more deaths.

PhRMA must be running scared because of all the negative press on antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs. I suppose it's possible that the Black Box suicide labels, the studies proving that antidepressants don't work, all of the advocacy from our allies, FDA corruption investigations, and criticism over direct to consumer advertising would lead PhRMA to seek government mandates and get a free ticket to a stable or growing market, especially one that has the potential to create so much more "depression" by bringing about deaths that will cause grieving families to resort to drugs... and damage the bodies of any babies who do survive so severely that PhRMA will be able to have a customer for life (whether for heart problems or because of drug addiction that began in the womb).

It's time for the guilty parties to fess up... because we are not fooled into thinking that depression causes spontaneous abortion or transposition of the great arteries, or into thinking that a woman who committed suicide after being given four consecutive triple-drug cocktails along with electroshock would have fared worse with NO treatment (or more preferably, SAFE treatments) than she did with multiple, toxic, suicide-black-box-labeled drugs and electrically-induced seizures.

Please stand up for yourself and our future mothers and families and unborn babies. Demand our right to say NO to dangerous medications, now, before the government takes that away from us more than they already have!!!

* From Sam at psychdrugdangers.com who has taken the FDA data and put it into a readable table for analysis (the FDA does not provide a readable version nor do they seem to be paying attention to the records in their database):

"Also note that there are several records where it looks like the baby died at birth or within a few days of being born (e.g., Cases 6358054, 6413898, 6413900, 6414433) that are not included in the "Deaths" tally because "Death" is not listed as an adverse reaction. My program that generates the html pages doesn't have the ability to check for Date of Death matching Date of Event if "Death" is not in the Reactions list. I think the omission of a "death" adverse reaction is due to the fact that these reports appear to be written about the mother who was taking the drug, not the infant (you also see a number of "abortion spontaneous" that don't list a Date of Death, I think because the mother didn't die)."